Suspect arrested in World War II Memorial vandalism in Washington
[August 15, 2026]
By GARY FIELDS
WASHINGTON (AP) — A person has been arrested in connection with
vandalism at The World War II Memorial on the National Mall in
Washington, D.C., U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine
Pirro announced Friday.
Pirro announced on X that her office was filing two felony charges
against Melissa L. Farris. Pirro said the felony charges are
“Depredation Against Property of the United States and Destruction of
Veterans’ Memorials.” The offenses carry penalties of up to 10 years in
prison.
On Thursday, the words “Clean hands dirty $” were found painted on the
monument and bubbles filled a fountain.
“Vandalizing our World War II Memorial is a despicable attack on a
sacred monument honoring the Americans who fought and died for our
freedom. Those Americans include my father and grandfather,” Pirro
wrote.
A woman identified on her Facebook page as Melissa Lovewell posted a
video Thursday in which she is seen taking cans of spray paint from her
bag and then painting the monument.
“I will wait here to be arrested for spraying our veterans’ fountain,”
she says. “It was me, I’m doing it, it’s on camera."
In a video posted Friday, the woman, who in a separate post said she had
been in Washington for three weeks, said she was turning herself in.
The arrest warrant filed in the case indicated that witnesses took
pictures of the vandalism occurring, which were circulated among U.S.
Park Police officers.
One officer recognized the suspect as someone they arrested Aug. 10 “for
unlawfully camping on federal property” just blocks away. She
livestreamed that arrest, the warrant said.
The suspect was identified by her Kentucky driver's license as Melissa
L. Farris, of Elizabethtown, Kentucky.
Farris was expected to be arraigned Friday. The Public Defender’s office
said she was not yet listed in the system and had not been assigned an
attorney.
The incident sparked harsh rebukes from both Pirro and President Donald
Trump and comes after the president blamed damage to the nearby Lincoln
Memorial Reflecting Pool on vandals, without providing evidence. That
case prompted charges against multiple people which were dropped when
Pirro said evidence showed the damage came from botched repairs after
Trump's renovation at the site.
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Visitors walk the WWII memorial the morning after it was vandalized,
shown Friday, Aug. 14, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/John
McDonnell)
“Our beautiful World War II Memorial was just hit by Spray Painting
Vandals,” Trump said on Friday on his Truth Social site. “First the
Reflecting Pool, now this.”
The Interior Department said that the U.S. Park Police were on the scene
following the Thursday vandalism and an investigation was ongoing. "The
public should know we will find the person responsible for this
disgusting act,” the department said.
The Friends of the National World War II Memorial, a nonprofit
organization that helps maintain the site, said: “There are many places
in our country for expression, debate, and disagreement. A national
memorial honoring those who served and those who never returned home
should never be used as a canvas for vandalism.”
The Veterans of Foreign Wars called the vandalism “an act of profound
disrespect, a slap in the face to the veterans who served and sacrificed
and to the families who carried that burden at home.”
A former Olympian was charged in late July with deliberately damaging
the Reflecting Pool, but the Justice Department later moved to dismiss
that case, saying evidence prosecutors had received refuted the idea
that vandals were to blame.
Trump sharply criticized Pirro’s assessment that damage to the
Reflecting Pool was the result of shoddy construction and not the work
of vandals, as he claimed.
The case dismissal was an embarrassing setback for a Justice Department
that had previously echoed Trump’s claims and billed the prosecution as
accountability for damage at a Washington landmark, a pet project of
Trump. Pirro’s decision to drop the case was also a rare moment during
Trump’s second term of an aide or political appointee openly defying
him.
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